If you are looking for fall comfort food, look no further then this vegetarian sweet potato, carrot, and apple stew. Topped with with a dollop of protein-filled yogurt, you have a filling meal that will warm your belly. I paired the stew with homemade pretzels, but you could easily serve with corn muffins too.
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Make sure that you leave the peels on the potatoes, carrots, and apples. We’ve been conditioned to peel our vegetables and apples, but I beg you to leave them on when you cook! Why would you want to remove all the nutrition from your meal? Some might say that the peel gives your food a dirt flavor, but I have not found this to be the case if you scrub your produce well before using. I will admit there can be an “earthy” flavor, but to me this adds to the dish. An added benefit of not peeling produce is that you avoid food scraps that lead to methane release in the landfill. Just say no to vegetable peeling!
The other reason I don’t peel my produce in this recipe is that it really doesn’t matter. You can leave this as a traditional stew with chunks of vegetables, but I prefer to blend to creamy perfection. With blending, all those peels get pulverized into tiny bits that you can barely see, which helps you sneak in all that extra nutrition for picky eaters out there. An immersion blender is my secret weapon to get this job done. It simplifies the recipe and saves so much time so you don’t have to transfer to a blender. Clean-up is also a breeze.
Kitchen hack: This recipe calls for minced fresh ginger root. Have you ever bought ginger root at the store? I was in tears laughing at a story my brother-in-law told about my sister bringing home this giant foot long piece of ginger root from the store because that was all that she could find. What would they possibly do with it! Well, let me give you a tip I learned a long time ago. First of all, at the store you should be able to buy as little or as much of the ginger root that you want. It is typically sold by weight. So all you have to do is snap off a piece and take it to the register for weighing. Secondly, since you most likely will only need to grate a little bit for a recipe, place the extra root into a silicone zipper bag and store it in your freezer. It keeps for years this way and you can just take it out and grate what you need while frozen and then put it right back in. Voila! You will always have ginger on hand and don’t have to worry about wasting any extra that you buy. Just be sure that when you actually do run out that you put it on your grocery list!
Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Apple Stew
Equipment
- immersion blender
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter or olive oil
- 2 large sweet potatoes chopped
- 3 large carrots chopped
- 1 apple cored and chopped
- 1 onion chopped
- 1/2 cup red, brown, or green lentils
- 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- plain yogurt for serving
Instructions
- Melt the butter or olive oil in a large, heavy bottomed stock pot over medium-high heat. Place the chopped sweet potatoes, carrots, apple, and onion in the pot. Stir and cook until the onions are translucent, about 5-10 minutes.
- Stir in the lentils, ginger, ground black pepper, salt, cumin, chili powder, and paprika, and cook for just a minute until fragrant. Add the vegetable broth into the pot and bring the soup to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the lentils and vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes.
- At this point you can serve as is, or use an immersion blender to puree the soup right in the cooking pot.
- Add water as needed to thin the soup to your preferred consistency and season with salt and pepper. Serve with yogurt for garnish.
